CHAPTER 2: In Which The Delibird Leaves The Nest

Gwen woke up early the next morning, chiefly because there was a Rufflet on her pillow, chirping directly into her ear.

"Ohmygod," she gasped, as she opened her eyes and saw an enormous blurry face next to her face. "What?"

Rufflet flapped its adorably tiny wings and lifted off, landing on the end of her bed. Now that there was some distance between them, Gwen could breathe a little slower, let her heart rate go down.

"Little dude," she said. "What are you doing in my bedroom?"

Then she recognised the scratch in its beak, and the little tear in the feather on its forehead. This was Adrian's Rufflet, his partner in heroics.

"Oh," she said, "I see. Am I late?"

Rufflet chirped again, loudly, and Gwen winced. "Please stop doing that," she sighed.

She grudgingly crawled out of bed, and glanced out the window. Adrian was sitting on the fence outside the house, annoyingly bright-eyed for someone with such impressive bedhead. He was totally waiting for her.

Thankfully, she'd already organised her backpack the night before. She'd even laid out clothes for today, so in a heartbeat she was dressed and shod, brushing her teeth in the little en-suite bathroom, trying not to get toothpaste all over her cute new shirt.

"Look," she mumbled to Rufflet, who was perched on her sink. "This can't be that interesting for you, can it? I'm sure Adrian brushes his teeth all the time!"

Gwen took a break from sassing the bird pokemon to spit and rinse, then dried her face.

"Alright," she said. "I'm ready. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Apparently it was, because it leaped off her sink and flew into her bedroom. She could hear a crash as it knocked over her lamp on the way out of the window.

Before she left her bedroom, she took a moment to right it. She wouldn't be back here for a while – Gwen wasn't sure how long it would take her and Adrian to hike from town to town, getting approval from each town's hero, but she knew it wouldn't be just a few days – but that didn't mean she had to leave it in a mess.

She ducked into Zoe's room on the way down the hall. It was decorated in shades of pastel, mostly pink and lavender, and it was as neat as a pin. Gwen spent a long moment lingering over the photos pinned to the board on the wall, most of them shots of Zoe and Celia grinning into the camera. A couple of recent ones were of Zoe and her Misdreavus, Zoe's grin a little too wide, like she couldn't quite believe that she had her own pokemon.

As she turned away, she noticed a corner sticking out from beneath a photo of the guys and Zoe making stupid faces. She lifted it up to find a photo of her and Zoe, smiling and hugging. Gwen lowered it again, trying not to work out the implications of Zoe having a) covered the photo, but b) not actually having thrown it out, or even taken it down.

She was about to start her hero journey; this wasn't the time to try and reconnect with her awful foster sister!

Gwen left the room in a hurry, and sped down the stairs, into the kitchen where her parents were waiting.

"Gwen!" her mother said, holding out a slice of toast. "Adrian's waiting outside for you."

"Yeah," she said, "I know. His Rufflet woke me up."

Her parents laughed. "He's been a terror ever since he got that pokemon," her dad said with a smile.

Gwen couldn't help smiling around her toast. "I'm sure we've all been a bit loopy," she said. "Having your own pokemon is just...wow."

"For once, I know what you're talking about," her mum smiled nostalgically. "When I first got Tropius...it was like magic. We were together every day."

"Until I came along," her dad added. "Then Tropius had to learn to share."

Gwen had to laugh at that as she finished off the last mouthful of toast. If there was one thing Tropius hated, it was sharing. He lived in their backyard, as a six foot pokemon just didn't fit in the house, but he'd poke his head in and hiss at their dad whenever he saw them together. Even though they'd been married for near-on twenty years, he still hadn't got used to the man.

"Alright," she said, after a pause. "I guess I should get going, huh?"

Her mother immediately dissolved into tears, pulling Gwen into her arms.

"Ever since we took you in," she said, soft and wet against the top of Gwen's head. "I've always loved you, and I've always been proud of you. Never doubt that for a minute."

"I won't," Gwen said. "I wouldn't. Not ever," she added with a little wobble in her voice. These parents had been better to her than she'd ever thought she deserved. They had loved her, and she had grown to love them. She wanted to leave, to become a hero and save people the way the man with the Ampharos had saved her, but at the same time leaving was the hardest thing she'd ever done.

After a long embrace, Gwen pulled herself away. "I really do have to leave," she said with a small smile, trying not to cry.

Her dad gave her a brisk hug, kissing the top of her head. "Break a leg," he said with a grin. "You'll be fine, kid."

Knowing they were completely, entirely, one hundred percent behind her, she left the house at last.

"Finally!" Adrian exploded. "Do you know how long I've been waiting?"

Gwen laughed. "Adrian," she said. "Who cares? We're free! We can go wherever we want, whenever we want!"

His frown faded into a smile. "Well, first we have to go to Galena," he said. "But I see your point."

She shrugged. "I want to go to Galena," she said. "But we don't have to go. The road goes that way, but we've got pokemon now! If we wanted to go through a forest, or climb over a mountain...we could!"

Adrian's eyes lit up with the promise of adventure. "Why, I do believe you're right."

"I'm always right!"

"You wish!"

Gwen resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him, but only barely. "Ok," she said instead. "So we've agreed that I'm always right, and that adventures are awesome. But we really are going to head to Galenaville first, right?"

"Why are you so obsessed with that town? Every time we had a field trip there you were excited for days."

"Hey, field trips are cool, okay? And besides, I want to be a hero. Why wouldn't I be excited about going to the town where pokemon heroes originated?"

Adrian narrowed his eyes at her. "I know there's more to it than that," he said. "I just know it!"

"Okay then, Mr Know It All," Gwen laughed, an edge of nervousness to her voice. "Let's go, and we'll see if you can work out the big secret."

They began to walk down the road, though the streets of Adventurine. They went past the Academy, left at the Pokecenter, and straight on past the Poke Mart. As they walked, the excitement built in both of them.

Just as they were about to take their first few steps out of town, a terrified scream rang out behind them like a bell.

Gwen and Adrian spun as one, searching for who was screaming. There was nobody to be seen, but the screaming continued.

"I think it's coming from that way," Gwen pointed.

"Let's go!"

They set off down the road at a dead run, Rufflet flying for all he was worth above them. Gwen's shoes hit the gravel at the same terrified rhythm as her heartbeat. All she could think was that they needed to find whoever was in danger and protect them.

In what felt like mere moments, they were at a crossroads. There was no more screaming, but Gwen could hear sobs coming from down one of the roads.

"That's gotta be it," Adrian said, and they took off again towards the sobs.

Soon enough, they were at the source. A building that they both knew of, but that neither had ever been to before: the pokemon daycare center. It was a long, squat building, and Gwen could see a large yard out the back. The building was painted a bright, sunny yellow, and flowers surrounded the building.

There were two women standing at the entrance of the building, which was flung wide open. The redhead was holding the blonde, who was sobbing inconsolably.

"Are, are you okay?" Gwen asked, a little out of breath.

The redhead looked up sharply. "Who are you?" she snapped.

"Um," Gwen said.

"We're graduates of the Hero Academy," Adrian jumped in, pulling out his emblem. "We're here to help, ma'am!"

"Help?" she sneered. "I doubt it!"

"M-Marian," the blonde stammered, lifting her head and turning wet, red-rimmed eyes on the pair of heroes. "Don't be m-mean. I think they really d-do want to help."

Marian sniffed. "Even if they do, there's nothing they can do. They're gone!"

"Who's gone?" Gwen asked. "Your attackers?"

"W-we weren't attacked," the blonde explained with a sniffle. "We were r-r-robbed!"

"How much money did they take?" Adrian asked, pulling out a notepad and a pen. "We'll get all the information you have. I'm sure we can bring them to justice!"

"You idiot," Marian snapped. "Eileen isn't saying they stole money."

"Then what-?"

"They stole baby pokemon," Marian explained with a sigh. "All of them."

Once Gwen and Adrian had gotten the story out of Marian and Eileen, they investigated the daycare. One of the windows was broken – obviously how the thief had gotten in. Baby pokemon were pretty weak, Gwen knew, so it probably hadn't been too difficult to capture them.

The tragedy was the date of the robbery. The day previous had been the graduation – and the theft. Pretty much everybody in town had been at the graduation, so the daycare had been full of everyone's baby pokemon. Marian and Eileen hadn't been there, the only person there had been the shifty new intern, who was now conveniently not answering his phone.

"H-he couldn't have done it," Eileen was convinced. "He was s-so nice!"

"Nice, schmice," Marian replied grimly. "It had to have been him."

"We don't know that for sure," Adrian cautioned. "We shouldn't leap to conclusions. Gwen..."

"Yeah?" she'd been considering how the robber had escaped. Back through the window?

"I think this might be time."

"Time? Oh, time."

"Time?" Marian asked suspiciously.

"Time for my pokemon to help out," Gwen explained. "He's sort of – you'll see."

With a flick of her wrist, she'd detached his pokeball from the necklace she wore it on. A quick press of the button was enough to enlarge the ball to regular size. She tossed it into the air gently, and a beam of red light came out of the ball, forming into a small, humanoid shape before resolving into the actual pokemon. It had an entirely white body, a green helmet covering most of its face, and two red disks poking out of its helmet.

"Ralts," Gwen said. "Pokemon were stolen from here. Can you sense anything?"

Gwen's Ralts made a high burbling noise, looking around the area. She didn't really think he'd find anything useful, but there was no harm in trying.

Ralts tugged on her leggings, and when she looked down, he looked up at her and burbled.

"What does that m-mean?" Eileen asked, watching Ralts closely.

Gwen sighed, returning Ralts to his pokeball. "It means the thief was feeling pleased, which isn't helpful."

"Wait," Adrian said. "That actually is helpful. If the thief wasn't nervous, that means it probably wasn't their first theft. And pleased sounds like it was premeditated?"

"It had to be premeditated," Gwen agreed. "Otherwise what, it was just a coincidence the center was full of baby pokemon?"

Adrian smiled at her. "Exactly."

"So you don't actually have anything useful," Marian said, throwing her hands up in disgust. "Great. Awesome. I guess we will call the actual police."

"Hey," Adrian said, a touch of annoyance in his voice. "We're trying, okay?"

"Well, you're not doing a very good job, are you?" Without waiting for an answer, she hustled the two of them out of the center. "Thanks for looking, or whatever, but I think we'll bring in the professionals now."

And with that, she shut the door in their faces.

"Rude," Gwen muttered, as they strolled back to the exit of Adventurine.

"Marian?"

"So rude."

Adrian laughed. "We really didn't help her, though." he offered. "I can understand her getting a little mad."

Gwen sighed. "Whatever, she was still totally rude. Sorry we're new at this, jeez."

"It went okay for our first investigation," Adrian said, patting her on the shoulder. "We got to poke around, make some hypotheses. Next time we'll actually solve the crime, I promise."

"Hopefully!" Gwen said. After a long, silent moment of walking, she added softly "I hope the police find those baby pokemon."

"What would someone even want with baby pokemon?" Adrian asked. "I don't understand the crime at all!"

"There were some rare pokemon on that list Marian gave us," Gwen said. "I'm sure the thief will be selling off those ones. Or trading them? A lot of people love baby pokemon, but can't be bothered to breed or find their own."

Adrian sighed. "I'm sure the police will find the thief before that happens."

They didn't look at each other as they walked along the road. They knew how unlikely it was that the police would find the missing pokemon, especially before some of them could be sold or traded. It was something they had learned at the academy, and one of the reasons they had wanted to be heroes.

As they left the small town of Adventurine behind them, the mood was somber. Gwen remembered how excited she'd felt that morning, but she couldn't summon up the feeling again. She just felt like a failure. Her first day as a Pokemon Hero, and she'd been completely, spectacularly useless.